Community volunteer Bill Stephenson says he is struggling to figure out any crypt-ic clues of why an unknown man’s ashes were buried in his garden.

The macabre find was unearthed by a gardener while mowing the lawn of the 70-year-old’s Chester-le-Street home of more than 45 years.

But far from a historical interment, beneath the soil lay an urn, topped with an engraved plaque with a name of a man Bill has never met, and the words “died 15th June 2008”.

“We had the gardener come to cut the grass - I have to have someone come because its a big garden at the back and I can’t do it myself,” said Bill, a volunteer at the Chester Le Street Community Centre on Newcastle Road.

“He used a big heavy petrol mower, which I don’t think he’d used before, and when he’d gone I noticed he’d taken the top soil off part of the garden, near the old pond.

“When I looked there was a casket with a coffin lid in brass, with the details of a man who’d died in 2008. It was wrapped in a black bin liner and the mower has torn it, which is why we’ve seen it.

“It’s frightened the life out of all of us - but how its gotten buried in the garden nobody knows.

“I rang the police and they started an investigation.”

The garden sits on the opposite site of a private road at the rear of Bill’s Wesley Terrace home, behind his garage, down an uneven 12ft path, beyond a slightly overgrown rose bush.

Bill Stephenson has been living in his home for over 40 years and has recently discovered the ashes of Thomas Lawson Cox who died in 2008 buried in his garden, Bill has no idea how they got there.

“The garden is easy to get into,” said Bill. “Although my neighbours are usually out the back. Yet nobody saw anything, so police reckon it may have been buried at night.

“We don’t know whether it went into the ground in 2008 or has been put there just recently - but the big question is why bury someone’s ashes in a stranger’s garden?

“Nobody round here knows who he is and the crematoriums we’ve contacted had no record of him. He could be from out of the area.

“It’s very odd - and I feel very sorry for the poor man.”

It is still unclear how the remains came to be buried in Bill’s garden, but a spokesman for Durham Police said the force has tracked down the deceased’s brother - however he also has no idea either how the the ashes ended up there.

“It’s an absolute mystery,” said Bill. “Why was my garden chosen in particular? All I can think is maybe with it being next to the old pond the ground may have been soft to dig out - though the rest of the garden is concrete, as I know from trying to bury our cat, when I snapped two spades.”

The casket cannot be removed without permission from the Ministry of Justice.

Each year the Government receives over 1,000 applications to exhume human remains, including cremated ashes.

The MoJ saus that “each will be considered on its merits, but applications made for private family reasons on behalf of the next of kin will, subject to any other necessary consents, normally be considered sympathetically.”

In order to apply for a licence, next of kin must fill out a five page form, which has a further seven pages of explanation telling people how to successfully complete it.

A local funeral director has said that once the deceased’s brother has the correct paperwork they will take the casket to Birtley crematorium or to a “more appropriate resting place.”

“If someone wanted to to just be rid of the box, why not just dump it in a bin?” said Bill. “It’s all very strange.”